A causal mechanism that seems likely to propogate to the future.

Winning the lottery can lead to present success. Having one once, in a fair game (and that's a valid condition to check) is exceptionally unlikely to lead to future success.

OTOH, pursing a line of work in which you haven't yet succeeded, but others have, may be an area in which lack of present success doesn't preclude future success.

I tend to look to process with more emphasis than outcome.

Of course. In a world where success is due in large part to random events, it's easy to come up with better predictors about whether someone will be successful in the future.

Sure, family money.

We might have to define success